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[London]: David Mortier

Abstract

Works on the history of horticulture are comparatively rare. So writers of popular gardening books often cover the background of their topics by repeating uncritically the words of their predecessors, to the point where a myth is born. In the 1990s the ornamental potager was a fashionable form of vegetable garden. It was presented and widely accepted as a ‘re-creation’ of 16th and 17th century formal kitchen gardens in France and Britain. Tourists flocked to Villandry in France and Barnsley House in England to see their archetypal potagers. In Chapter 2 of my book Cultivating Myths, I used original sources to show that the layout and planting of formal fruit and vegetable gardens was for maximum productivity, not elaborate display. Johannes Kip’s volume of plans for country estates provided me with invaluable evidence to dispel this myth.(Chosen by Helen Leach, Emeritus Professor, Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, Otago)